I’m no bar fly. I don’t spend inordinate amounts of time in bars, to the detriment of the rest of my life. I don’t drink on a regular basis.
But I do drink. And I enjoy it. I often forget to drink – for weeks on end – only to remember I’m of legal age and able to purchase alcohol. Then I wonder why I ever forgot to drink in the first place.
And I won’t lie here: I wish I was a better drinker. The idea of Scotch is quite appealing to me, but I can’t handle the truth. I’ve never even tried Irish Whiskey (wha?). And Tequila, sadly, is not my friend.
But sometimes, friends, a gal just needs to find a bar and order her grown-up-self a drank. When that happens, best not to fight it. Just get thee to a dispensary and offer payment for nectar received.
That’s what happened to me the other day. And I walked (I didn’t drive – I’m responsible, yo) to a local and had a lovely Italian red beer. I looked like trash, I cannot deny. No make-up. Unkempt hair. Ratty clothes. I clean up well, but I dirty down more than I care to admit.
But do you think it mattered to those at the bar? Nope. In fact, a rather dapper Englishman was sitting a few stools away and he struck up a conversation to beat the band. And here’s the weird thing: no subject was off the table. We talked politics. We talked religion. We also talked the racetrack and the French, but hey, we couldn’t help ourselves.
In the end, that well-dressed gent was rather pleasant company. And you know what? He wasn’t hitting on me. He was just talking. To me. At a bar. And it was nice to talk to a stranger about the world at large, with no judgment or expectations. It was mature and civil. And it happened at a bar.
Maybe I should take walks to bars more often. But knowing me, I’ll probably forget to do that for weeks on end. Go figure.